Saturday, November 04, 2006

The Taming of the Roo: Part II

Morning Sickness. It sucks...or so I've been told.As Little Leab was growing, he was making my wife ill. The first real major bouts of morning sickness came at the perfect time: my birthday.There is one rule I have for my birthday: MHD. For those of you unaware of those letters, MHD stands for Mental Health Day. Every year, as a gift to myself, I take a day off from work. One year I went to the zoo. Just me and the monkeys....Most of the time, however, I go to the movies. I spend all day there by myself, which is nice. With my wife sick, however, my birthday was spent holding her hair. I knew she was really sick, because she didn't go to work. Mrs. Leab is a workaholic. There's almost no way she would miss work. If Jesus himself showed up and told her not to go to work, she'd smile at him and say, "Sorry, duty calls."So with her praying to the Porcelain God, I knew she wasn't going anywhere. There's a moment when you're holding someone's hair that you realize, "Damn...I'm having an 'adult' moment here." Damn kid's not even born yet and my life is changing.Mrs. Leab's morning sickness would continue a little longer. It became a great excuse, however."You want us to see your play? It's six hours long...and about how your dad molested you dog? Yeah...the ole morning sickness is flaring up....Not sure we'll make it.And, of course, my wife's sickness meant she couldn't help me set up the house. She could point and tell me where to put things, but the onus was on me. The baby's room was covered in wall paper that would need to be taken down. Here's a tip for you: score the walls...and steam the hell out of them. Worked very well. It was difficult at first as I knew that I would have to give up my book room. Much like my father, I had a room dedicated to my books where I could store and read my books. Made life easier for school as well. I need a text? To the book room. Now I have a storage space where I have to rifle through boxes. Would I trade Poozer for a book room back? No, of course not, but it was still hard to pack up everything (and to be the one to do it). The other difficult decision came when it was time to paint the room. Yellow. Mrs. Leab wanted yellow. Just like my father, my lovely wife liked the color yellow. We made a pact that we would not find out the sex ahead of time (that would be blown away by a talkative doctor), so the colors of pink and blue were pretty much out. I wanted a light green, but she wasn't having it. When I showed her a sample and she vomited on my shoes, I knew it was over. I could hear the bell ringing and fight being called. It worked out well.Next: Classes...and appointments.